12 Worst WWE Pay-Per-Views Without A World Title Match
8. No Way Out 2007
Despite several Raw and Smackdown superstars sneaking on to single brand cards in 2006, No Way Out marked the end of the original brand extension's show-only pay-per-views, and justified the decision with a chronically dull WrestleMania curtain raiser.
Outside of a novel main event featuring WrestleMania title match opponents teaming up against one another, the card was a dreadfully dull affair with so little consequence considering what a vital time of year it was supposed to be for the talents.
It highlighted just how far the blue brand had fallen after years of talent raids in favour of Monday Night Raw and an over-reliance on Undertaker and Batista to carry the entire brand with such a dearth of credible superstars underneath.
Emblematic of the state Smackdown was in, nothing was actively bad but so little was particularly good.
A six-man tag featuring Chris Benoit and The Hardy Boyz against MVP and MNM was serviceable, but the characters had so little going for them on the Friday night wasteland. Ditto for yet another Cruiserweight Open and the continuation of Paul London and Brian Kendrick's lengthy tag team title reign.
The financials bore out the dissonance. Disconnected almost entirely from the product, the show drew 218,000 buys. Under half of that year's Royal Rumble number, the buyrate represented almost a million less than the rampantly successful WrestleMania 23 just one month later.